Google Updates and SERP Changes - Feb 2012

[robdob]

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Any help would be greatly appreciated, is it possible that this lastest update woull dump the SEO of my sites because I had link to them within the footer of one of my other sites? Also Google shown within its webmaster tools that there were some 2,000,000 + pages linked from the footer to my site.. is this a reason for google to penalize me? Any input wouldbe greatly appreciates..

I own all the sites involved...

Thanks

[edited by: tedster at 5:41 pm (utc) on Feb 1, 2012]

[ohno]

/\lol, sounds about right. I've just tried to find a company yet all I can find is the football team that company sponsors! Still,we've just had a small blip of sales.(3 in 3 mins).

[mslina2002]

Ah yes, and that site that has been out of biz now still sits at page 1 with an adsense place holder page. It's been ONLY a few weeks.

Lots of fancy codename for Google Panda update, but more work needs to be done -
[project codename “iotfreshweb”, project codename “Freshness”]

[scottsonline]

Can confirm what ohno sees at the site I currently run and the old one from my old job. Both saw a big spike Sunday into Monday and flatlined today.

On my current job bounce was 45% yesterday with a conversion of 11% which is really high. Today it's 54% and 0%. I cannot find any reason real searches are there just not buyers. Switch is off.

Personally I searched for a very popular household item last week. This is something we all have many of in our residences. Last week great results. Yesterday the #1 site was one of those click traps saying I won an iPad and "stay on this page" or "leave this page" traps. It was #1 for every combination of long tail I tried in that topic and did not appear to have any relation to the topic at all. Started last night when traffic died off.

These frequent fluctuations are hurting the economy.

[suggy]

Also dead as a Do Do today. UK site. Just nothing being clicked. No sales. Dismal and yet we are unmoved in search. I supply other retailers (competitors) also through a trade arm (we dropship for them) and guess what, dwindling orders from them also! Some of these guys are the big boys of my online niche.

I don't get what Google's up to these days. The phrase, "Too clever for your own good" springs to mind! How they can be happy with so many "gone aways" floating around on page one and with the relevance of exact searches (like trying to search for a very specific item, but not brand or trying to answer a detailed coding problem), I don't know. They seem to be so busy patting themselves on the back, they don't notice. Classic complacency and group think. The geeks need to get out more!

The current Google all seems very retrograde to me. OK, so they've banished the content farms for the most part, but at what cost to freshness and relevancy? And, what about these monthly dances (Panda refreshes)? Not exactly caffeine is it?!

[networkliquidators]

If you have a E-commerce B2b site, the average consumer will visit 10 other sites before making a buying decision. Therefore, ensure you on page optimization covers every piece of information your customers are concerned with via emails or phone calls.

I typically have users register and come back to buy the following week.

[claaarky]

Suggy, we're also a UK ecommerce site (Pandalised but recovering I think). Healthy day yesterday, online sales, enquiries, phone orders, the works.....dead today but traffic looks fine.

However, a competitor launched a massive two day promotion with a huge discount and it tends to go quiet for us when that happens, but they tend to do it when they need to stimulate business (i.e. they're finding it quiet as well). The erratic buying behaviour many of us are seeing could simply be due to the economy rather than Google.

I feel the same as many here though. It feels like something has immense control over my business, deciding when I can have a good day, or a good 30 minutes, like business is being dished out to us rather than us winning it.

[networkliquidators]

Don't forget Google favors their shopping module in serps. I did a survey of our top 100 selling products of a specific manufacturer and for every result, this is the typical scenario:

- MFG Website: First 1, 2 and 3 ranks
- Google shopping module: between the 2nd and 6th rank for every product.

I did this before Google was being drilled on capital hill. What is important, these results are still true today. If the person's intent is to buy, why go to a individual site when you can go to Google shopping to see a section of 100+ product's based on availability and price.

[Web_speed]

These frequent fluctuations are hurting the economy.

I would have added the word "world" in that same sentence.

Their power over millions of business world wide is mind boggling. Too much power in the hands of a very irresponsible firm. It is as simple as that. Regulators intervention is now well overdue!

[Whitey]

Googles plan to own all results will continue. In some key verticals it's much further advanced.

[ohno]

Yesterday was bizzare, we made lots of ££££ but in a VERY small window, like 60 mins late afternoon. Today is quiet, traffic down on yesterday by around 20% but less foreign of what I can see.

[networkliquidators]

Any of you seeing more direct visits Feb 22nd to today? I'm talking at least 20%+ increase compared to your previous 7 days. I am seeing a 60% increase that are all unique visitors.

[backdraft7]

copycat competitor who normally does 1/10th our sales is again back to doing 10 x our sales. Algo indigestion.

[ohno]

Bad day here, dead from midday. Traffic also well down.

[slinky101]

Any of you seeing more direct visits Feb 22nd to today? I'm talking at least 20%+ increase compared to your previous 7 days. I am seeing a 60% increase that are all unique visitors

Yes, went from about 4500 uniques a day to 6800 from Feb 22nd. With a huge lot of that going to the forum, and only a small increase to the home page and static pages round it.

[ohno]

/\ Forums seem to be ranking much higher for a lot of terms I monitor.

[backdraft7]

^^^I'll bet it's only temporary ^^^

[networkliquidators]

Yes, went from about 4500 uniques a day to 6800 from Feb 22nd. With a huge lot of that going to the forum, and only a small increase to the home page and static pages round it.

Other SEOs I know are stating the same thing. I mean, it could be coincidence, but I know my E-comm site. Even the last 5 months was pretty static in direct visits. This jump has to be Google related either in how they are directing visitors.

These direct visits are not the result of Google image previews either. All unique visitors are from a wide variety of locations with an average of 4 pages per visit. These visitors are 90%+ of the time new visitors too.

Around the same time I:

- Added a more appealing header navigation using CSS for my users
- Added our brand to the beginning of all product pages for company recognition. Branding > a few points from keywords
- Improved internal search
- Gained 110 pixels (Meaning, My H1 tag is closer to the top of the browser.
- Made pricing and availability more apparent on product pages (visually and the verbiage used to deliver)

The point of this post is to determine if a loss in your Google organic section can be attributed to a increase to a abnormal increase in direct visits. I am not ruling out site changes could affect this, but no return visits in these direct visitors suggests otherwise.

[slinky101]

^^^I'll bet it's only temporary ^^^

Well since 99% of revenue comes from my static pages, it's not too worrying for me if so. The forums are pretty busy, but don't make much really.

I also revamped and uploaded my new static pages about 2 weeks ago after Google kept 'losing' my home page. The code was about 7 years old. Static pages are clean, fresh, have a few of the latest discussions fed in 'live' and also now using H1, H2 tags.

The static pages show a 'gentle rise' in analytics since the 22nd. The forum pages though, are showing practically a vertical spike upwards last few days. The upgrade for the forums (software) I hasten to add, was completed way back in Nov so there have been absolutely no recent changes there.

[ohno]

& today, death. Not one single sale. Not surprised at all the warning signs were there yet again. One plus, the sun is shining & it is more like May than March :)

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[edited by: tedster at 3:29 am (utc) on Mar 2, 2012]